FALLOUT 3: OPERATION ANCHORAGE Posted by Dan Pearson on Jan 29, 2009 14:53 (Jan 29, 2009 14:53) |
||||||||||||||||
Bethesda have an interesting past with DLC on Xbox Live, the now infamous horse armour pack for Oblivion made them a laughing stock, thankfully though they got back some credibility with the exceptional Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine packs. Now its the turn of Fallout 3 and the first of three announced packs, Operation Anchorage.
Due to the nature of the ending of the main game you need to load one of your earlier saves to play this game, once downloaded for 800 points you will receive a distress call from the Brotherhood. Make your way to them and assist with the Super Mutant attack, once the skirmish has been dealt with you will be asked to help with getting into a locked vault that holds advanced military equipment, they ask you as you are the only one with a PIP and to gain entry into the vault you need to complete a virtual military simulation based on the US efforts to liberate Anchorage from the Chinese and kick them out of Canada. This is very similar to one of the main game quests with the scientist holding hostage all of vault occupants in a Virtual Reality world, but rather than a Pleasantville approach we have all out war.
 Straight away you will notice a few major changes to the classic gameplay, gone is the raiding of boxes and bodies for items and the constant drinking of Nuka-Cola to boost your health, in true VR fashion the bodies of the dead flicker and fade away and you now come across health and ammo dispensers as you play throughout the game making this more focused on action in the classic FPS sense than the adventuring of the main game.
Anchorage itself is a real contrast to the sand blasted remains of the real world, there is snow everywhere and there are a lot more enemies to shoot at than in the main game. You only carry over your experience into the VR machine, thankfully at certain points of the game you are able to select what weapons you will take with you, plus there is also a small amount of team management involved, this really amounts to instructing them on weapons and what bases to attack but it is a welcome change.
The Chinese enemies bring some new items with them including the Stealth Armour which allows them to get up close and personal for vicious melee attacks and the Gauss Rifle with singe shot sniper capabilities.
This add-on is enjoyable but because of the focus on fighting it is more of a Fallout 3: Lite on these four new missions. The price point of 800 points may scare people off, what you get in the end is 2-4 hours gameplay depending on your skill, 4 new achievements to unlock and a few new weapons and armour to use back on the main game. If you are a big fan though then it’s probably worth it.
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
Comments |  |
